New Comics! - Week of 7/25/11

It's the RETURN OF AXE COP!  ... oh, and some other comics too.

Axe Cop: President of the World #1 (of 3)
Axe Cop is back!!!  What?  You don't know what I'm talking about?!?  C'mon, man!!!  Axe Cop!!!  He's the awesome product of a 5 year old boy and his talented 30-year-old artist brother!  The brothers have been cranking out the Axe Cop web comic for 3 years now and Dark Horse is releasing the 2nd full-color mini series.  This series is the craziest thing I've ever read.  It's the wildest stories a 5-year-old can come up with expertly drawn by a professional comic book artist!  Malachi (the writer) is now 8, but the stories are just as crazy as ever.  This is the only comic I know of that can out-weird Saga.

At the end of the last mini-series "Bad Guy Earth", Axe Cop killed off all the bad guys in the world by poisoning them and making them poop themselves to death.  The grateful citizens of Earth then made Axe Cop the President of the World!

This series starts off with Axe Cop ruling over a peaceful planet.  He creates a new town in Washington State, called Axeville where he rules from the "Gold House", which is a gold version of the white house.  Axe Cop prays to God asking if the bad guys will ever return.  God tells him there will be a million years of peace, but then the bad guys would attack from outer space.  To ensure this, God places a million-year forcefield around the Earth.  Not wanting Earth's defense to weaken over the next million years, Axe Cop sends all the superheroes into the future to fight the eventual bad guy invasion.  In the meantime, Axe Cop  does his thing, staying perpetually young thanks to his Chief of Staff's healing eye beams.  During this time Axe Cop meets a goo-powered hero with mind-controlling goo powers and dubs him Goo Cop.  He thens meets a talking Gorilla with gun fists, giant-growing powers, and a tail that shoots out jet fighters.  The Gorilla (named Junior Cobbb) comes from Gorilla Planet that is under attack by robot penguins.  Axe Cop, Goo Cop, and Junior Cobbb head to Gorilla Planet to save the gorillas.  They find that the penguins are impervious to harm, so they head to the Robot Penguin planet and disable their master computer, which kills all the penguins.  The gorillas want to recycle the penguins, but Axe Cop sees that their metal is tainted with evil and can't be recycled, only destroyed.  Junior Cobbb grows into a giant and shoots a volcano out of his tail (see below..this is great!), in which the penguins are destroyed.  They then head back to Earth.  Time passes and God's force field disintegrates as the heroes from a million years ago appear thanks to Axe Cop's time portal.  The army of good guys wait and wait and wait but no bad guys appear, so Axe Cop sends the heroes back to their own time and goes to bad disappointed.  He's awoken in the middle of the night by his Chief of Staff, Ralph Wrinkles the dog, and is informed that the bad guys are attacking Seattle and that there are roughly ONE BILLION of them!

Tell me that's not the best comic book plot you've ever heard!  Man, this book is pure fun!  I hope little Malachi makes enough off of this weird character to pay for college.  That would be awesome!

Check out more Axe Cop goodness HERE.

- PICK OF THE WEEK!!!

The Mighty Thor #17
Previously: All of Asgardia had been taken captive by a race of little alien dog nightmare monsters, putting everyone into a dream prison.  Thor escapes, waking up just in time to see The Enchantress and her newly created boyfriend, The Keep, heading for Asgardia's empty throne.

Thor and The Keep start pummeling each other, being that this is a Thor comic and all, and Enchantress drones on about how she created her own boyfriend since Thor wasn't good enough for her (she's been chasing him for eons).  Then Dr. Blake's head starts yelling at Thor and explains how after he "died" the last time, he and Thor were separated.  Thor didn't even notice, but Dr. Blake was left a shell of a person, having only been created by Odin to house Thor's spirit to humiliate him.  In response, Blake made a deal with the Enchantress that ended with him being a disembodied head and The Keep being made from his body.  Thor is bummed that his half host body person was so upset about being separated from him when the rest of Asgardia wakes up and The Keep and Enchantress are uncermoniously ejected from the land.  Thor goes and makes a deal with the nightmare alien dogs that gives them a representation in the assembly of the realms and he gives them Dr. Blake's head to put into a perpetually happy dream.  So weird.

The Keep is a pretty cool looking character and I was hoping for a more dramatic fight between him and Thor.  It wasn't bad, just kinda standard.  The art was pretty good.  The story was just above lame, but below interesting.  I really like Thor, so I'm holding out hope that the next story arch doesn't center around nightmare dogs or emo Oklahoma teenagers (that's a story thread that wasn't worth mentioning...see my previous reviews for some details if you care enough).

- This was a pretty standard Thor book.

Wolverine & the X-Men #14
In the midst of an ongoing war between the Phoenix-powered X-men and the Avengers, Colossus takes some time out to go court Kitty who is acting as head of the school during Wolverine's absence.  Colossus takes Kitty off to have a romantic lunch in a setting straight out of the old testament, with walls of water on both sides and eating their meal on the dry seabed.  Colossus tries to propose, but Kitty shuts him down and warns him that the power he holds is dangerous and changing him.  After a few attempts at love, Colossus gets mad and takes her back to the school.  He then decides to destroy it because Kitty chose it over him (in his mind).  The few remaining X-men on the grounds try to stop him, but don't even slow him down.  Kitty stand her ground and he freaks out on her, throwing her to the ground and telling her that he could kill her, bring her back to life, and maker her do whatever he wanted.  At that he pauses, realizing that he has become some kind of monster and flies away.  Just then Iceman, Rachel Grey, and Angel come back to the school, having left Cyclops's crazy X-team.  Kitty loses no time putting them back to work, as the school has been severely under-staffed.

This series continues to be a fun read and the quiet presence of Doop as an adjuct professor makes it all the better.  In this issue I thought we would FINALLY see some Doop action.  When Colossus attacked he showed up with a huge Cable-sized gun and shot it, but that was all.  We didn't even get to see what Colossus did to him, if anything.  C'mon!  This is the weird little guy who ate Thor's hammer, then spat it back at him duplicated 100 times!  This is the guy who created a wormhole to another dimension by popping a zit!  This is the guy who's brain exploded into pieces and had to live off the backup brain in his butt for a week!  All he can do is shoot a gun at Colossus?!?

Don't get me wrong, I love this book, but they're missing a lot of opportunities with Doop just floating around doing nothing.

- This continues to be the fun X-book to read!

Weekly Comix! - Week of 7/18/12

I'm juggling a lot of graphic design/illustration projects at the moment, so I've fallen about a week behind on my comic reviews, but I'm committed to keep them coming.

Avengers vs X-Men #8
The Phoenix 5 are starting to show signs of breaking as Namor sets off on his own to destroy the Avengers in Wakanda.  The Avengers lure him in and then go "Avengers Assemble" on his butt.  Namor gets ambushed by Spidey, Thing, Thor, Red Hulk, Dr. Strange, Vision & Valkyrie.  They beat him down pretty hard at first, but then he catches his breath and breaks Red Hulks arm to the point of bones sticking out of red skin!  As the tide turns in Namor's favor, Scarlet Witch steps in and matches Namor's power with her Magic.  Vision catches Wanda as both fighters collapse and the rest of the X-men show up.  At their arrival, the Phoenix Force leaves Namor and divides that power between the remaining 4, to their surprise.  The Avengers on the other hand, retreat to the mystical kung-fu city that is home to Iron Fist.  As they stand there, catching their breath, Hope asks, "So...what's the plan?  Is there a plan?"  and no one has an answer.

I feel like the plot is getting a bit stale again, but at least there was one heck of a fight to keep readers entertained.  Adam Kubert stepped in on art duties and did a good job, though I prefer Olivier Coipel's art personally.  Overall a good issue, but it didn't really move the story along very much.  I'm interested to see how the Phoenix 4 respond to the revelation that when one of them falls, the others become more powerful.  I wouldn't be surprised if they start turning on each other.

Saga #5
The weirdest, most entertaining series of the year continues with this opening scene.

Why, yes, that IS a robot prince sitting on a toilet!

Issue 5 starts off with the pooping robot (one of the generals of the war) being informed by his robot wife that she's expecting a baby, but that his father won't let him come home until he catches the two runaway soldiers and their baby, even if he misses the birth of his own child.  The robot pooper vows to be home in the first trimester.

His prey happens to be the star-crossed lovers that are the heroes of our little story.  As the focus shifts from the bathroom to the happy couple, they are being confronted by 6 soldiers from Alana's military (the "wings").  Marko tries to warn them away, but they get the orders to "pacify" and start firing.  Alana takes a slug in the shoulder and Marko quickly forgets all about his vow of pacifism.  He rushes forward with his blue, glowing sword and takes out all 6 soldiers.  He's about to kill them, when Alana stops him.  The rage leaves his face and he thanks her.   They tie up the soldiers, steal their ship and make their getaway.

In another part of the galaxy, the bounty hunter known as "The Will" is trying leave the sex planet, Sextillion, with the 6 year old prostitute he just saved.  He is confronted by her "owner" and realizes that the only way he can save the girl is to buy her contract, which is way more than he can afford.  He quickly calls fellow bounty hunter, The Stalk, to reconsider her offer of teaming up to catch Alana & Marko and split the profits.  On the other end of the phone call, The Stalk is standing by the captured soldiers shortly after the couple has escaped.  She tells him she's not interested in teaming up anymore and he says he only turned her down the first time because he's in love with her and was angry about the way they ended things.  Just then the Robot Prince rides up on a horse, hoping to capture the couple, sees The Stalk, thinks she's reaching for a weapon and he blows a hole in her chest.

This story is SO good!  It's amazing that they have managed to fit this much story into only 5 issues!  I'm hoping that the death of The Stalk will put The Will on the side of our heroes and he'll help them out instead of hunting them down.  He has been shown to be a pretty good guy deep down, despite being a tough bounty hunter, and I'd like to see him become the Han Solo to Marko's Luke Skywalker.

Before naming this book Pic of the Week I need to remind potential readers that this is a MATURE TITLE.  There are boobs and bad language in every issue so far.  If you're old enough to handle that kind of thing, then pick this story up.  If not, get a little older then buy the trade paperback.

- Pick of the Week!!!

Wonder Woman #11
The only DC title I'm currently following is the weak link in this week's comic stack, but that's not saying it was bad.  Just not quite as good.

In this issue, Wonder Woman's friend, and soon to be aunt...sort of, is at her small-town doctor's office for a pregnancy check-up.  While she's in the office, Apollo and Artemis show up intent on capturing the mother of Zeus's unborn child.  WW, Hermes, and Lennox try to stand against them, but they don't stand a chance and Lennox ends up getting punched in the stomach hard enough to crack his rock-hard form almost to the point of crumbling entirely.  Zola comes out of the office and sees the battle.  She hops in her truck and drives it into Apollo's back, only to have him survive the attack and grab her up under his arm.  Artemis and Apollo then leave with Zola leaving the heroes beaten in the mud.

The next scene is in Olympus where Apollo presents the pregnant lady to the vengeful Queen of the Gods, Hera, who then gives Apollo his reward, the recently vacated throne of Zeus.  The King of the Gods has disappeared and the other gods have been fighting to see who would take his place, and it looks like Apollo has won the spot except...Wonder Woman and Hermes are standing on it ready for round 2!

This book got of track for a few issues, but it's picking back up now.  I'm still a big fan of playing up Diana's mythological background instead of making her a female Superman.  This approach is WAY more interesting and fun.  I'm glad I stuck through the slow issues.  I'm starting to get excited again.

New Comix! - Week of 7/11/12

I'm not feeling great and it's late, but I don't want to get weeks behind in my reviews, so I'm pushing on.  These might be a bit shorter than usual though.

AvX Versus #4
The 2 fighters per issue series continues featuring Daredevil vs Psylocke and Thor vs Phoenix-powered Emma Frost.

The Daredevil/Psylocke fight was good,but basic ninja vs ninja type stuff.  There was some good philosophical dialogue between the two at the end and the fight ended in a draw.

Thor vs Emma was AWESOME!  The sole reason is artist/writer Kaare Andrews.  Andrews has an exaggerated style that you either love or hate.  I happen to love it.  Emma fights in her diamond form and taunts Thor about his pretty hair and implies that he's a cross-dresser.  Thor answers by giving her an enchanted hammer uppercut starting at her crotch and shattering her upwards.  The diamond pieces are seen entering the atmosphere, pausing, then zooming straight back down towards the God of Thunder.  Thor finds himself in the middle of a fiery diamond rainstorm that tears him to bits.  Emma reforms herself from the shards and proceeds to pummel Thor senseless.  Winner: Emma Frost.

This book is just fun reading and the art was really cool in this issue.  I wish Marvel would give the reigns of a flagship character's monthly book to him.

Avenging Spider-Man #9
This issue was meant to be a springboard for the revamped Captain Marvel character who gets her own book next month.  The problem with it is that it sucked.  Bad.

Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) is a pilot (even though she can fly?  Why?) and offers to give Peter a lift to see his Aunt who just moved to Boston.  On the way they meet a high-flying Robin Hood wannabe and the armored bounty hunter assigned to bring her in.  Everyone fights.  Captain Marvel beats on the armored guy.  Spidey quips.  You know what?  I just can't make myself care about this story.  I started liking Carol when she was a member of the New Avengers a few years back, but I just couldn't care less about her here.  The plot was lame.  The dialog weak.  The ONLY good thing about this issue was the art by Terry Dodson, who is fantastic.  Not $4/issue fantastic though.  Not for me.

This is 2 crappy issue of this series in a row and the next issue continues this lame story.  I don't have money to throw away so I'm going to cancel this from my pull list next week.  If decent-looking issues come along after this story arch, I'll pick it back up.

The stars are for Terry Dodson.  If not for him this gets 1 or maybe no stars.  I don't have time and money to waste on subpar comics.

Spider-Men #3
Hey!  It's the opposite of suckiness!

The dual Spidey story continues with Peter and Miles teaming up against Mysterio.  He uses his illusion powers to conjure an army of Spider-Villains for the guys to face, but Miles makes it to Mysterio and shuts his avatar body down (see last issue's review for details).  As the Ultimates arrive to assess the situation, they find Peter missing.  Nick Fury tells Miles that Peter has gone to see this world for himself and to make sure he's not crazy.  We then see Peter quizzing a convenient store clerk about the very public death of the Ultimate U's Peter Parker.  On the last page we see Aunt May and Gwen leaving her house in Queens and stopping when they see a Spider-Man standing on their lawn.  They both start shouting threats at him (they are publicly known as that world's Spider-man's family after all) when Spidey pulls off his mask and the ladies are shocked to see an older version of Peter's face with tears streaming down his face.

This story is wicked fun.  Pichelli's art is top-notch.  That sappy ending even worked on me!  I love this series more than I thought I could.  Keep it coming, Bendis.  You're doing what you do best!

Pick of the week!!!

Wolverine and the X-Men #13
Gladiator, the Emperor of the Shi'ar Empire has brought a force to Earth to end the Phoenix threat and to retrieve is son from Wolverine's school.

The Shi'ar fight bravely and Gladiator is about as powerful as any Marvel hero, but he can't stand up to the Phoenix.  They beat him soundly by the end of it.  The cool thing is that althroughout the book, the focus isn't on Gladiator or even Wolverine, but on his son's bodyguard who came to live at the Jean Grey School with him, Warbird.  In this issue we learn Warbird's entire history and it's REALLY well done.  She is a surprisingly interesting character and this one issue has cemented her as a favorite in this series.  She's strong and ruthless, but deep down has the heart of an artist and a romantic.  This sounds cheesy, but it was a really good read.  Though Kid Gladiator ordered her to help him save his father, she followed higher orders and knocked him out to keep him safe.  In the end they are seen back at the Jean Grey school holding a battered, possibly dying Gladiator and looking for help.

I haven't had this much fun reading X-Men since Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.  Nick Bradshaw took over art from Christ Bachallo this week and did a great job.  The art is always good and the story always entertaining.  Great series.

New Comix! - Week of 7/4/12

Good, solid comics across the board this week.  Hard to pick a favorite except for the fact that....HE-MAN'S BACK!

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1
He-Man returns to comic book form, this time courtesy of DC Entertainment!  I had no idea they had the He-Man license!  Not only is the MAN back, but they're giving this storyline a very fun twist!

The story starts off with He-Man and his friends, the Masters of the Universe, fighting against Skeletor and his minions.  Then the scene ends and you see that it was all just a dream in the head of simple woodsman, Adam.  He gets up, goes outside and gets right to work, chopping trees.  In the distance, over the treetops you can see the shadowed outline of Snake Mountain.  As he works, Adam ponders over his dream and wishes it or something like it would come true to make the awful world of Eternia a better place to live.  Apparently, Skeletor actually won and now rules Eternia with an iron grip.  None oppose him because he has made all the heroes forget who they are and what Eternia used to be like.  He keeps close tabs on Prince Adam, who now lives in a shack in the woods, cutting up trees and taking care of his ailing father.

Adam soon befriends a colorful falcon who comes to visit him while he works and his dreams continue until the point where he feels like he has to go find his destiny.  He leaves his father in the hands of a good neighbor (State Farm?) and starts his trek through the forest.  He soon gets stopped in his tracks by the hulking form of Beastman!  Adam doesn't remember Beastman, but the monster warns him to turn around and go home if he wants to live.  Adam doesn't turn right around so the orange beast jumps at him.  Adam runs, fighting back feebly with his woodsman's axe.  He is surprised by how well he's able to keep the monster at bay and wonders how it knew his name.  After a few close calls he tricks Beastman, stabs a freshly cut tree limb in his back, and knocks him out with a punch.  He is then more determined ever to find out what's going on in the wider world.  The issue ends with Skeletor sitting in Snake Mountain with the wounded Beastman saying that Adam had to be stopped, dead or alive.  Tell "everybody".

The good: I was SO excited to be reading a new He-man story, especially one with a totally new status quo.  Skeletor is in charge, Adam is a lowly woodsman who only dreams of being a powerful warrior.  This is fun.

The bad: I felt like they have a good story going here and they're rushing right through it!  Beastman should have been the crap out of Adam and sent him back home a mess!  Then, as Adam heals over the following weeks, his resolve to try again grows and he shows his inner character by braving his fears and trying to leave the woods again.  Adam should NOT be able to defeat and knock out Beastman with a punch!  I guess that was supposed to be awesome, but I thought it was out of character.  Adam isn't really the wuss he pretends to be, but he's not a warrior either.

Also, the cover art shows He-Man in his classic Filmation gear.  Inside the comic, all the costumes have been updated and not for the better.  Everyone shown in any kind of fighting costume has random bits of chain main hanging off of them at weird places!  Beastman has little bits 2-3 scales deep hanging off his arm bands and from his loincloth.  Not enough to help as armor, just enough to look like something bought at Claire's in the mall.  The dream shots of He-Man show him with a really long scale mail strip going down his crotch in front of his furry loincloth.  I'm not a fan of the costume upgrades, but it's certainly not worth dropping the book.

Overall: This was a fun new take on what is possibly my all-time favorite character.  For me, before there was Spidey, before there was Wolverine, before there was Batman...there was He-Man.  I'm all in!

- Obligatory Pick of the Week!

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #12
Things are heating up between Miles and his villain uncle, Aaron!  They recently took down a mean thug called, the Scorpion together.  Aaron (a.k.a. The Prowler) wants to keep the teamup going.  Miles wants nothing more to do with his corrupt, manipulative uncle.

In this issue, Miles resolves to bite the bullet and tell his parents about being Spider-Man.  He knows his dad will flip out, but he has to come clean.  His uncle is using the threat of outing him to his father to blackmail him into helping him build a criminal empire.  On his way  home, Uncle Aaron intercepts him and gives him one more chance to change his mind.  He's very persistent, so Miles tells him "yes" to get him to go away and Aaron tells him to meet him that night.  When they meet later that evening, it's so Miles can tell him to go away and never come back.  Aaron has some respect issues and responds by trying to kill his "disrespectful" nephew.  The fight is a pretty good one.  Aaron has no powers, but he is loaded to the gills with villain gadgets, the main one being sonic-wave emitting gloves, much like classic Spidey villain, the Shocker, uses.  It comes down to a street brawl and Aaron is going in for the kill shot standing right above Miles when his damaged gauntles explodes, shooting Spidey across the street and burning his uncle to a crisp.  Before he passes out, Aaron whispers, "Just...like...me..."

I'm not sure how Miles will respond to this, but i'm about ready for the storyline to move along.  Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed every issue of Ultimate Spiderman, before and since Miles has taken the lead role, but the Prowler thing has been dragging a bit.  I'm ready for Miles to move past the shadow of his uncle and keep growing into the hero he was meant to be.

Solid story.  Great art.  Keep the Spider-train rolling!

AvX (Avengers versus X-Men) #7
At the end of issue 6, Cyclops had had enough of the government's superteam and decides it's time for "No more Avengers".  The X-men go hunting and hound the Avengers from hiding place to hiding place.  Some great battles take place, with Scarlet Witch being the Avengers' only Ace in the Hole, aside from Hope, who they can barely keep from the X-men. For some reason the Phoenix is susceptible to harm from Scarlet Witch, but she is easily sidetracked in battle, which they use to keep her off balance.  While Tony Stark and Black Panther work to find a way to counter the Phoenix Force, the Avengers scatter across the globe, dividing the X-Men and using Dr. Strange's magic to make it appear that Scarlet Witch is everywhere at once.  At one point they are retreating from Namor's group and Hawkeye ends up consumed in fire by Emma Frost, burned almost to death and captured by the mutants.

Back at Utopia, the previously solid Phoenix Five are starting to show cracks.  Magik and Colossus are starting to talk a little crazy, the former saying that the Witch is "evil" and must be purged from the Earth.  Namor and Scott yell at each other, Namor saying that they should just kill the Avengers, Scott saying he doesn't want to kill anybody.  Emma then goes behind Scott's back and tells Namor where the Avengers are hiding, which she has NOT told Scott.

In a new plot twist, Iron Fist brings a kung-fu buddy from his secret city (read my review for issues 5 and 6 for more details) where they claim to know how to counter the Phoenix and prepare Hope to control it.  The Avengers are making plans to evacuate Wakanda to Iron Fist's homeland when Namor attacks their base full-force.

This story has been getting better and better since Iron Man split the Phoenix into 5 pieces and it inhabited 5 X-Men.  I'm a little leery of the answer to the Avenger's problem being magic kung-fu, but we'll just have to wait and see where this goes.  I'm anxious to keep reading and the art has really taken a step up the last few issues thanks to Olivier Coipel.